An absent-minded professor's blog.

Continuing from the Sinulog 2011 party…Well, Cris and I didn’t stay long. Our itinerary said that were would be fireworks scheduled at 9PM and we wanted to get to the tallest building in order to witness it. That tallest building happens to be the Crown Regency Tower at Fuente Osmeña, Cebu. Yup, it’s the same hotel we experienced our daring Sky Walk adventure a couple of days before. (Honestly, we regretted that we didn’t book this hotel instead of the Crown Regency in Guadalupe.)

Anyway, after our rather arduous, RPGesque journey towards this tower — which included me throwing a couple of punches at a drunken dude who groped me — we examined which part/floor of Crown Regency has the best view.

This picture of the 19th floor Sky Lounge was actually taken on our second day in Cebu. This was where we returned after the Sinulog parade. We discovered that the windows sort of become mirrors at night. From here we decided that Wang Shan Lo, Crown Regency’s Chinese restaurant, seems like the ideal place to have dinner while watching the fireworks.

True enough, it did have a breathtaking view of the city during the night. We did not expect it to have a veranda, but it did.

The veranda was quite small, though, so Cris and I took turns at watching the fireworks. We were actually in for a treat because it wasn’t just one building that was setting off fireworks, even Crown Regency did its share.

Yes, all of my fireworks photos are lame. I just took these with my point-and-shoot, and while Shin-Chan2 has proven to be my perfect companion during trips, he cannot match the power of a dSLR at night. (Or it could be that I’m just really dumb when it comes to these things.)

I’ve actually seen gorgeous shots of the fireworks at Matud Nila, one of my favorite Cebuano blogs.

As for the food, Wang Shan Lo offers a buffet for a reasonable price of approximately PhP480/head. But since we were so full from the party, we decided to forgo the buffet and go à la carte.

At first, I thought that the soup was kind of expensive, since the price indicated PhP280 for a small bowl. I didn’t think that “small” in Wang Shan Lo would mean “ginormous”. I’m afraid to ask how big the “medium” and “large” bowls should be.

I think I needed four of me and two of Cris to finish off the entire thing.

The carrot juice I ordered costs about PhP100. I’d actually be happier with house water, since I noticed restaurants put sugar in the fruit juices.

I was pretty sure I ordered steamed prawn dumplings, which are my staple Chinese fare. So I wasn’t quite sure what these were when they arrived. Apparently, these are fried prawns in lumpia wrappers and coated with a bit of sesame seeds. Do I like them? Well, I’m not a fan of fried Chinese food but the sesame seeds sure added a curious flavor to this dish.

Cris regularly orders xiu mai whenever we’re having Chinese. These aren’t any different from the ones you can buy from food stalls.

Any way, we were there for the view so we were lucky enough to find that the restaurant wasn’t full. I recommend eating here, if only to witness the beautiful Cebuano night skyline.

Nice! I haven't been to Cebu for a long time, and I'm missing it! I said before that I wouldn't mind relocating there.

I love taking fireworks photos! I'm just not sure if it you can take good photos with a digicam. Here are my shots on NYE 2009-2010. Unfortunately, my Nikon is busted and I haven't saved enough yet for a new DSLR 😐

As usual naman, Jonna, you take beautiful shots. Haha! But yeah, pag vacation ok na sakin si Shin-Chan2. He actually helped me take really good photos during the Sinulog (which is actually work-related, LOL) because of his zoom and macro lens. It's not obvious from my photos but I was extremely constricted by the very large crowd. Thousands of people taller than me eh.

For indoor photo shoots, however, I had to borrow Cris Dumlao's Nikon D80 dSLR. I miss handling my Canon 450D.

About The Author

Doc B is a crazy cat lady, a former behavioral scientist turned video game producer, and a full professor. She is an INFJ who is married to an INTJ game/software engineer. You can grab a copy of her book by clicking the book thumbnail below.